Burning Up
by RaspBerryStars
Summary: When Leslie gets sick, Ben takes care of her.


**Title:** Burning Up  
**Author:** quick_ly  
**Fandom:** _Parks and Recreation _  
**Pairing: **Leslie/Ben  
**Rating:** G  
**Warnings:** Spoilers for season 3.  
**Summary:** When Leslie gets sick, Ben takes care of her.  
**Disclaimer:** Nope, _Parks and Recreation _is sadly not mine.  
**A/N:** I hope this is okay, because I haven't written fic in like _forever _and this was written pretty quickly (okay, it was written in a day, but I usually takes longer for me to produce decent fic. But when I saw the new promo, I couldn't help it (he's touching her forehead, guys!) Plus, I got season 2 on DVD for Christmas, so I'm kind of on a _Parks and Rec_ high. All I need now is a Leslie/Ben fanmix!

**_._**

When Leslie gets sick, Ben drives her home.

(Yeah, you heard that right.)

He makes it out to seem like a big inconvenience, which is silly, really, because there are plenty of people in the office, Bens sure, who wouldn't particularly mind having to drive her home. In fact, logistically speaking, it would make more sense, seeing as they probably already know where she lives, and it's not as though Bens had anything even remotely close to a shortage of work lately.

And yet, when Chris and Ben, after much resistance, discover of her illness (Ben: You're burning up. Leslie: You're burning up. _What?_) he's the one to sigh heavily and go "fine, I'll take her home."

There's not much of a fight.

_**.**_

The thing is, even though it's completely against his way of thinking, Ben sort of _wants_ to see her house. It's a bad idea, he knows this; Ben has spent the majority of the last seventeen years telling himself not to do things like this, that it's best to think of the people he's going to end up firing as robots who don't have friends or families or lives, that getting close to them in any way it _off limits_.

But with Leslies it's different; she's just so happy and full of life (in ways that Ben can only imagine), so Ben has almost no choice but to befriend her. He can't explain it, Leslies just… what Ben wants to be. Somebody who cares about and for the people, who doesn't mind the long and suffering hours; Ben wants to be the kind of person who will still do right by his citizens after they vandalize photos of him with Hitler mustaches and try to get a resignation after he marries two male penguins.

_**.**_

The drive to Leslie's house interesting, to say the least, as she's trying to convince him that she's not sick while giving out thoughtful directions ("Benjy, I'm not sick, (_cough_) you're sick. I'm just- make a left up here, slowly, so you don't wake Ms. Talgates dog, Skipper.") Bens not entirely sure if he should believe her, as it seems quite possible that this whole 'sick' thing is just a ploy to show him that the park swings need two loops instead of one. When they pull into a driveway with a mailbox that says _**Equality**_ in bright red letters, though, he knows they're in the right place.

Leslie's house is, in a word, nice. A little messy, but nothing big, and there are a few sighs that say stuff like "this is what a feminist looks like" and "It's not mailman, but mailwoman!" Ben feels oddly at home here.

"You need to call Ann. She will come and prove to you that I'm not sick," Leslie says before bursting into a fit of coughing.

As it turns out, though, Ann's pretty swamped at work and won't be getting off till eleven, as the earliest. "Just give her lots of soup and tea, and make sure she gets tons of rest."

"Um, how exactly do you suggest I do that?" Ben asks, as Leslie is currently doing jumping jacks and singing "Physical" at the top of her lungs.

"Put on _The Lion King_ or _Sleeping Beauty_. She usually falls asleep within the first fifthteen minutes of those. If that doesn't work, put on any movie from her John Hughes collection, preferably _The Breakfast Club_."

Bens beginning to wonder what he's gotten himself into.

_**.**_

"Please Leslie, for the love of god; will you just eat your soup already?"

"I don't want soup. Let's have ice cream instead!"

"Leslie, you're sick. You need hot soup."

"But this is chicken noodle, and I'm a vegetarian."

"No you're not. I've seen you eat meat."

"Well I'm trying to quit, and you're an enabler. Enabler, enabler!"

This goes on for a while.

_**.**_

At around 4:30, Ben gets a call from Chris.

"Ben, it's getting pretty late. Are you coming back? We could really use your innovative thinking."

"I don't think that's a great idea." They've just started _The Lion King_, and Leslie seems determined not to fall asleep. (It's actually kind of cute; her eyes keep on drifting shut, only to burst open a few seconds later.) For all Ben knows, the moment he leaves she could pop in her _Glee_ DVD, and Ben really doesn't want to be responsible for getting "Don't Stop Believin'" stuck in everybody's head.

_**.**_

At 7:41, Leslie falls asleep to _The Breakfast Club_.

Ben follows suit.

_**.**_

He wakes at 5:20 to a hot cup of coffee and a friendly "good morning, Benjy."

"How long have you been up?" He asks, taking a sip.

"Oh, just a few hours," she says with a bright smile. "Hey, um, thanks for taking care of me. I know I can be a little… brutal."

"… Don't mention it." He might be blushing, _might_.

"Well, you better get up, or your breakfast will get old."

"What?"

"I made us waffles."

Of course she did.


End file.
